


i put a pearl in the ground

by annperkinsface



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, Post-Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 23:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16504529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annperkinsface/pseuds/annperkinsface
Summary: Sora's had enough of dreams but dreams haven't had enough of him.





	i put a pearl in the ground

"I'm dreaming," Sora says, staring blearily out at the passing landscape. Twilight Town winding down below the tracks, nostalgic orange hues tinting even grassy hills. It's a dull realization, lacking drama or gravitas. It's been a day, maybe two since the Mark of Mastery. Sora's had enough of dreams but dreams haven't had enough of him. There's a crackle of an intercom, a voice that sounds vaguely like Kairi's welcoming all aboard, and Sora's gaze sharpens on his reflection in the window. Doesn't breathe, doesn't blink, expecting—something. But it's just him in an empty train compartment, looking at only himself, a name on his lips that he is too afraid to shape with his mouth.

Sora leans in close, seized by childish impulse. He breathes on the glass, watching it mist up. Drags a finger through the fog, hastily writing out the name clenched behind his teeth.  _Roxas_ stares back at him for all of five seconds before it fades back into nothingness, like it never existed at all. 

"If you really wanted me to see that I think you have to write it backwards."

Sora jerks, forehead colliding with the glass. In the train window his eyes are squinted and his face is caught in a mild grimace but the creases smooth out and what's left is something that looks a lot like wonder. His reflection breaks into a smile but Sora doesn't keep his eyes on it, not when there are more important things to look at. He turns around slowly, feeling the stretch of it across his face when Roxas is seated next to him, a smile tugging faintly at his own mouth. He’s looking at Sora like he's never been anywhere else and Sora wants to test the dream's substance, to fishhook that smile or grip his rounded cheek and _pull_ , remembering the press of Roxas’ hands in the other dream, the shock of the tenderness, the warmth. The reality.

“You’re here, aren't you?” Sora says, smiling through his uncertainty, bright enough to light up a room. “I think it worked just fine."

“Only because you don't have any Nobodies named Saxor,” Roxas says.

It startles Sora, gets a snort out of him. None of it is what he expects. The name or the joke or Roxas himself, wearing his Organization coat in a slant of light, looking absurdly pleased by his laughter. Sora shakes with it, head lolling back into the window behind him, throat bared. “Can you imagine?” he gasps, closing his eyes. Tears are collecting on the ends of his eyelashes. “It really rolls off the tongue.”

Eventually he calms, smiling breathlessly. He tilts his head down, swiping at the backs of his eyes with his fingers. He opens them and freezes, catching Roxas looking back at him, gaze soft but intent. Sora huffs out a laugh, more breath than sound. Scratches at his cheek.

“Hey,” he says, shyly.

Roxas’ eyes crinkle. “Hi.”

The train keeps rumbling along. Outside the sky has lightened to pink, trees and hills blurring past and giving way to flatter land, but Sora doesn't look. Doesn't want to miss a thing. "Roxas," he says, hushed, like speaking his name will cause the dream to crumble. "Where are we going?"

Roxas shrugs. It's remarkably unconcerned but this is hardly the weirdest thing to have happened to either of them. "I don't know," he says, peering closely at Sora, "but I guess we'll find out."

"Together," Sora says, more firmly than he means, but he can't regret it. Not when it sounds as right as it feels; not when Roxas smiles like it is tricked out of him: startled, warm.

"Yeah," says Roxas quietly, eyes bright, as solemn as any vow. "Together."

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually the train pulls to a halt. Sora has lost some time in between. It can't be sleeping—he's technically asleep—but whatever it is, he comes to and his head is leaning onto Roxas' shoulder. Sora holds his breath, peering up through his eyelashes. Roxas' head is turned to look out the window and Sora stares hard at the curve of his cheek, the line of his throat, the exposed skin of his clavicle. All those strange, mystifying places that Sora's never really looked at before and he swallows, strangely aware of his mouth. How close it is; how close it could be.

Roxas' eyes flick down, catch his own, and Sora's first impulse is to hide, to pretend like he's still asleep or whatever famiscile of it he has just succumbed to. He holds himself still, holds his eyes open. Smiles. "Sorry," he says. "Who knew you'd make such a good pillow?"

"Not me," Roxas says, not sounding bothered. Their faces are still so close. Sora can see Roxas' eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks. "But we're here. Wherever here is."

Sora frowns, sits up in his seat, awkwardly maneuvering himself to gaze out the window. "Huh," he says, blinking. "That's…monochrome."

They've pulled into a station that would resemble the Central one from Twilight Town if all the color hadn't been leached out of it. They are the only speck of it in the world, cutting a swathe through the monotony of everything around them. Sora makes a face but can't help wondering at the dream's shape, his throat aching with sympathy. He turns back to Roxas. His jaw is set and he doesn't smile but for a moment Roxas' eyes lose some of their intensity, just a little, just enough.

"Right," Sora says, feeling an echo of Roxas' grim determination settle over him. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Roxas says.

The door hiss open. They disembark.

They've barely stepped over the threshold when Roxas stops. Sora's a few paces ahead before he realizes he's alone and when he turns back Roxas has crouched down to pick something up, mouth looking grimmer than ever.

"Hey," Sora says, watching with increasing foreboding as Roxas makes to stand, waiting for his fingers to unfurl. "Is that….?"

It is.

Roxas huffs out a laugh that sounds more tired than bitter, the WINNER stick leering at them from the palm of Roxas' hand. "This is going to be a fun time."

"I'm with you," Sora says and it's his turn to step into Roxas' space, reaching for his gloved hands. His turn to squeeze them, the popsicle stick caught between their palms, all of Sora's earnestness gushing out and tangling into the point of warmth between their hands. "Together, remember? I don't know what we're going to find but whatever it is, Roxas, you're not going to face it alone. I promise."

Maybe it's unfair to promise that when Sora's going to wake up and Roxas isn't but Sora can't believe that. Won't. Their hearts are connected. They always have been but the shape of it has transfigured, wrought by stronger things than fate or destiny. Sometimes it's as simple and powerful as a choice and Sora chooses to never turn his back on Roxas. Not now. Not ever.

Roxas looks at him, mouth softer than Sora's ever seen it, his gaze just as startlingly open and honest as Sora's own.

"I know," he says, punctuating it with a squeeze to Sora's hands before dropping them and stepping away. The WINNER stick clatters to the ground but neither of them spare it a glance. They only have eyes for each other. "Now c'mon. Creepy monochrome worlds aren't going to explore themselves."

They go on, a trail of seashells leading from the steps to the big, heavy door that goes outside and through it the world's scenery changes again. It becomes a room, split down the middle like someone has drawn a line with marker or tape, two worlds mishmashed into an amalgam of one. One side of the room Sora recognizes from Roxas' memories as his bedroom in the Castle That Never Was, all twisting lines and the blue-whiteness of oblivion, and the other is Roxas' room in the artificial Twilight Town, the dusky sky hanging outside the window.

Roxas stands at the door, looking like he's seen a ghost. Pale, fractured, something splintering behind his eyes. Sora touches Roxas' elbow gently, everything aching—eyes, throat, heart—but Roxas doesn't stir at the touch, still blank, staring down the skeletons of his first and second life.

Finally he laughs, shaking his head.

He says: "I can't believe I actually thought it might be the beach."

 

 

 

 

"What now?" Roxas asks.

Sora turns his head but Roxas isn't looking at Sora, his gaze still fixed on the ceiling of their blanket fort. It's not Sora's best work; they're lacking in raw materials so they had to make do with draping the one blanket from the bed over the chair and desk and crawling into the space underneath. It's small, cramped, no room to sit up or play board games or do anything but lay there, side by side, and listen to each other breathe. Sora thinks it's nice. Thinks it feels like a world of their own, something made by their hands and not the dream's.

"Hmmm," Sora says, stifling a grin, but there's no hiding the smile in his voice. "I think this is the part where we share our deep, dark secrets."

Roxas snorts, incredulous, warm, and looks over at Sora with eyebrows raised. "Get real," he says, mouth curling. "Besides it's not like you don't already know all of mine."

“That's not true,” Sora says. “And even if it were I’d still want to hear. Sometimes it’s just about having someone listen."

Roxas' gaze feels heavy all of a sudden, all the humor bleeding out of it and leaving watchfulness behind. "What about you?"

It sounds like a challenge, however gently meant by Roxas' standards. Sora swallows, throat inexplicably tight. He smiles but it feels too much like trying to get away with something. "What about me?"

"What I said," Roxas says, unwavering. "Sometimes it's just about having someone listen, right? So you go first. Tell me a secret."

Sora feels—seen. That's the word, the feeling for when someone looks at you, really looks. Trust is strange. Vulnerability is stranger. Sora has a talent for both but even he struggles, wanting to shy away when people look too close, to keep them from seeing the things he tries to hide with a dorky grin and a positive attitude.

Roxas has trusted him with so much. His heart, his memories. What is one secret, really, compared to all that? Sora can't give Roxas a body—not now, not yet—but in a dream their hearts are dreaming, in a blanket fort made out of the remnants of his old lives, Sora can give him this. Honesty, forthrightness. Trust.

Sora closes his eyes. Some things are easier to confess in the dark. "I'm scared," he says, like exhaling a long held breath. "Ever since Xehanort. Since almost becoming his vessel during the Mark of Mastery." He swallows. Swallows again. "The thought of not being myself, of there being nothing left that makes me me...it's scary."

There it is, he thinks. Out of the darkness and into the light. It feels like a strange kind of relief. The magic of blanket forts, Sora thinks, and almost smiles except Roxas is quiet too long and it feels different. Strange. Sora's eyes fly open. His heart leaps to his throat. "Oh," he says, looking at Roxas with mounting horror, but Roxas has assembled his face into careful neutrality. It looks unnatural on him and Sora hates it, hates that he put that there. Hates himself. "Roxas—I'm so sorry.”

Roxas’ mouth tightens. It's so thin. His mask crumbles and there is no mistaking the anger in his eyes, on his face. “It's not the same,” he says, sharply. “ _You're_ not the same.”

“But it's my fault.” His throat is so tight. “If it weren't for me—"

"Stop talking," Roxas says.

He leans in and at first it's honestly nothing to write home about. It's just pressure, dry, close-mouthed, but Sora closes his eyes, presses just as clumsily back. Opens his mouth. It gets wetter but not weirder. Somehow it just feels like the realest thing in a long time, Roxas' tongue, the gloved fingers creeping over his ribs, inching over his heart. The palm that settles there, listening to the staccato rhythm, and making Sora laugh shakily into his mouth, his fingers digging harder into Roxas' hips. Sora's eyes are still burning. He keeps them closed even after it ends, only opening them when Roxas' fingers slide over his cheek, curling gently over his ear.

"First of all," Roxas says as Sora meets his gaze with a flush that thankfully doesn't show on his face, "you're an idiot if you think I'd kiss anyone like Xehanort."

Sora laughs. You'd think he'd be used to it by now but he looks at Roxas and it feels like a revelation, the hardness in his eyes, the gentleness in his fingers, the wry tilt of his mouth. There you are, Sora thinks with wonder. Tries to hold it close for later, tucking it behind his ribs for safekeeping, but it is something he thinks and keeps thinking, the longer he looks at him: I see you too.

Roxas' eyes soften. The curve of his mouth becomes heartbreakingly gentle. "Second," he says, "and there is no third so I need you to listen up, okay? I need you to know that I'm with you too. Always. Got it memorized?"

"Roxas," Sora says, just to revel in the taste, the sound. Eyes wide. Heart full. "Of course I do."

Some things are just that simple.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> me: [writes a 2k fic for 2 weeks] god this is so long i am exhausted
> 
> anyway this was my solution to wanting to write in canon soroku without indulging in too much post kh3 speculation. ao3 is lacking in soroku content so sometimes you gotta write the fic you want to read lmfao. with dream surrealist nonsense to boot!
> 
> let me know if it worked for you!


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